They volunteered for ten-hour days and months of nights, but former ATS girls Doris and Maisie still hanker after the good old days.

LONG before the It girls, Doris Elsy and Maisie Waggott - and thousands like them - were the ATS girls, khaki through and through. It stood for Auxiliary Territorial Services, formed in 1938 for non-combatant women with the motto "Gentle in manner, resolute in deed."

Doris and Maisie both volunteered in 1940, trained at what had been Nevilles Cross College in Durham, spent most of the rest of the war at Chilwell depot in Nottinghamshire but until this week had never once met.

"The discipline was just the same as in the Army, but this was the ladies' branch," says Doris, and then corrects herself. "The women's branch, I should say. There weren't very many ladies."

Doris, 82, lives in South Shields and three years ago wrote her autobiography after a friend and neighbour swiftly declined with Alzheimer's disease and she herself was registered blind.

"I wanted to get my memories down before I lost my mind as well as my sight," she said.

The book, called Into the Darkness and sub-titled "Canny old Shields", is published by South Shields libraries with a percentage of profits towards Alzheimer's research,

When it was mentioned in Lioness, the magazine for former ATS members, Maisie decided to get in touch - and that became something of a military exercise, too.

"On yer bugs," says Doris, as they do on Tyneside, "there's hundreds of us Elsys in Shields."

Maisie, 86, lives near the park in Spennymoor - a park which looks splendid, it might (literally in passing) be added - and has a mini-museum of ATS artefacts.

There's a framed copy of the King's warrant, pay book - nine shillings one week, 9/4d the other - buttons, badges, medals, English needles "for the ATS housewife", even a pretty little handkerchief with the ATS emblem in the corner. Regulations for ATS, carefully preserved, ran to 272 tight printed pages.

They met at Maisie's house, picture on the sideboard of her in full lieutenant's uniform after the ATS became the WRAC.

Both had been volunteers, Doris in printing, Maisie in vehicle spares. "You could always tell the conscripts because they were a little bit more rebellious when told what to do," says Maisie.

Doris was a lance corporal. "The only commission I had was for bringing up kids, six of them."

Both now widowed, they remembered early days at Nevilles Cross - "we had to live in tents, it teemed down every day," says Doris - and happy days at Chilwell.

There were ten-hour days, months of nights, sometimes seven days a week and everywhere under marching orders - knife, fork, spoon and mug up the hill to the cookhouse, even with the dirty bedclothes to the laundry.

Despite all that, they loved every minute. "It was being young was all about," says Maisie. "We might have worked hard but we played quite hard, too."

"I didn't think it was a hard life at all," insists Doris. "I'd go back there tomorrow rather than sit at home on my own all day, as I do now. I think I'd even welcome Rasputin the Mad Monk into the house, I get so fed up with my own company."

Now the only ATS is the tyre depot in the town centre. "I feel quite sad when I see it," says Maisie.

They reminisced all afternoon; we interrupted for 90 minutes. They're two lovely ladies, ATS off to them.

A bit of a do...

NOT least because they sat us next to Sir John Hall, the year's best and most sumptuous lunch party was held last Friday at the Ramside Hall Hotel, outside Durham.

Officially it was the unveiling in its new home of the painting of The Gallowgate Hoppings by Wilson Hepple, the 19th century Northumbrian artist said in later life to have a "rather grand beard" and to enjoy painting cats.

He also liked to sneak himself into his paintings - that's him, the hairy feller on the horse - just as Alfred Hitchcock claimed a cameo in most of his films and Morse author Colin Dexter would play extra time in the television series.

At one time, someone recalled, the hotel's principal claim to fame might have been the gents' toilet, ascended by seven steps. Something to with pull; a throne room indeed.

The painting, magically restored and unveiled by the artist's grandson Leslie Hepple,, was formerly in Newcastle Breweries' Gallowgate offices.

The Ramside, to whom it's on long term loan from S&N, bought a magnificent 1860 marble fireplace for it to hang above.

Ramside Estates chairman Michael Adamson also tried to keep the celebrated painting of The Blaydon Races in the region but was the second last bidder to drop out. "I lost me bottle," he said.

Other guests included Terry Laybourne, MBE holder and founder of the "21" restaurant group, Newcastle City Council leader Tony Flynn, upbeat about the City of Culture prospects and fairground bosses John Murphy and Colin Noble, excited about a posh new gateway for this year's Town Moor Hoppings.

Part funded by the Arts Council, it will be blessed by the Bishop of Newcastle in June.

Sir John, 70 now, was in great good form. After six years sun-trapping in Marbella, he plans shortly to return to the North-East. "What I miss most of all," he said, "is bloody good does like this."